The past few weeks we have witnessed some amazing events occurring in Iran. A normally controlled, if not docile, population has risen up in substantial numbers to publicly protest and defy the announced outcome of their latest presidential election. Fueled by our detestation of much of what Iran’s government stands for, a number of American politicians and commentators have rushed to their pulpits arguing for the US government to come out in strong support of these “revolutionary patriots” (our media terminology), as well as for a harsh denouncement of the current Iranian power regime. To those speakers I say, “Back off. Your arrogance is once again creating your own story as you want to see it, but you are not truly listening to the Iranian people themselves.”
There is certainly a shared goal among many that would like to see an Iran no longer isolated from international connections, acting responsible to its neighbors instead of antagonizing or threatening them, and withdrawing its support of fanatical terrorists. America shares this goal not only with all of Europe, but also with much of the Middle East community. It is at least one area where very diverse governments can come together. But that is not what we are watching occur today in Iran. What is occurring there is much more of a local event, fueled by local grievances. It is not another cultural explosion of American wanna-be democratic aspiration in yet another foreign land as is being portrayed in many media. We need to be clear about what we are witnessing.
Iran is a theocracy. A state where religion and government are intricately mixed together. Where Islamic religious beliefs and its power structure within a homogeneous society lies behind the illusion of secular government. Given the natural way that the practice of Islam integrally permeates one’s daily life, such a religious/secular integrated governing structure should be no surprise. The minimal separation of religious and secular life is similar to what we see within the Tibetan culture (in its exiled form, not as controlled by the Chinese within Tibet). It is close in form to what we see in Israel. And, of course, in the Vatican, an independent state as well as religion. Historically, England, Japan and China were all theocracies at different times. And, closer to home at the local government level, we have seen it practiced here with the Mormons and groups such as the historical Shakers and the current Amish. If some would have their way, it is what we would come to in America, except that we are too religiously diverse for that to happen within my remaining lifetime. The conduct and aspirations of theocratic countries may differ, but the concepts and the structures are the same.
From all responsible insight, the protest occurring in Iran, while as inspiring in their courage as the Chinese in Tiananmen Square, is not about overthrowing their theocratic system. Rather, in a country highly literate, demographically young, politically aware, and increasingly middle class, the protest is about cleansing the current structure. In its amateurish mishandling of the presidential election, the Iranian government moved into blatant arrogance and made the people’s true powerlessness unmistakably apparent. And the clumsy threat of the cleric Supreme Leader threatening people to “go home and accept the election result because I said so” was just yet another insult. The Iranian president may be a virtual figurehead standing in for the real power of the supreme cleric, but the people’s right to pick that figurehead is highly important to them. As individuals, each of us picks our own symbols that we use to disguise our actual powerlessness. These are important protective symbols for us, and we do not react well to having our truth exposed.
It may actually be true that, if the votes had been honestly counted, Ahmadinejad could well have won, although highly unlikely with the landslide margin claimed even before the balloting ended. In his fear of losing to a close competitor, his arrogance of authority, and his Cheney-esque disdain for the public, he overreached, perhaps unnecessarily, and brought this chaos on. What the Iranian people have reacted to, and now want, is a redress to that insult. An enforcement of the process in place. A return to the observance of their constitution. A rebuilding of the trust that had existed among religion, government, and the people. If we are prepared to be accepting of those national goals and such an outcome, then we should in fact be supportive of the Iranians we see out on the streets in the cell phone pictures coming to us. But if our goal is to subvert their state integrity in our zeal to overthrow the current distasteful Iranian clerical and governmental regimes, then we need to withdraw and mind our peace. For in such an instance, our efforts to overthrow that regime is our own selfish goal, and our pronouncement of support for the Iranian people is hypocritical at best.
We forced a regime change once before in the 1950s via a CIA-engineered coup that threw out the then government and returned a western-friendly king to the Iranian historical throne. It took them 20 years to throw out our puppet king, and we have thereby endured 30 more years of distrust to no one’s advantage. And we aggravated this distrust by our support of Iraq in its 1980s war with Iran. Thus, we have our own stained hand in the Middle East life-and-death poker game, a fact we are most uncomfortable acknowledging. So from their vantage point, Iran’s suspicions of our intentions and trustworthiness, like it or not, have been well grounded.
We can rightly decry and seek to influence the actions of governments, but it is not up to us to tell other nations how to live and what form of government to utilize. Just as we would not accept being told how to live and govern. In spite of our local critics, we should not act now in such a way as to confirm to the Iranian paranoia that we intend to repeat our 1950’s intervention, nor make Iran into another Iraq-style adventure. The reality is that we are not in any position or capability to eliminate the Iranian government, so hollow threats of such bring no desirable result. Decry the actions of Iran’s government; yet respect the people to be who they are. They are not us, and do not need to be.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Mighty Also Fall
On June 1, 2009, General Motors filed for bankruptcy. Granted, it was Chapter 11 bankruptcy for protection against creditors while they produce a new organizational plan and business strategy to attempt to become viable again. But Chapter 11 reorganization does not mask the fact that the company has collapsed and no longer works for whatever multiplicity of reasons.
With General Motors, its collapse carries a different resonance than the failures of the innumerable financial institutions and mortgage companies we have witnessed. Those institutions were abstract entities removed from our sense of connection, done in by insatiable ambition combined with a no sense or responsibility to the general good for their decisions and conduct. But GM? This was a company cobbled together in the early 1900s from a series of mergers with various standalone individual car companies. Back when there were many car companies built by energetic entrepreneurs – Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Chevrolet, Pontiac. Henry Ford may have invented the assembly line and created a mass market for the automobile. But GM built that mass market to new levels of demand, and then became the predominant company to supply that demand. In the process, it became the largest manufacturing company in the world, and the biggest auto producer for over 75 years.
It was an institution that was synonymous with the American Dream, that was married to American’s love of the open road, that symbolized the growth of the middle class. Through its extended network of suppliers and franchised dealers, it anchored small-town America and its social fabric. Long before the Japanese form of life-long employment emerged, GM supported a multi-generational workforce with a rising blue-collar income, complete with something brand new: medical insurance to protect those employees and their families from debilitating illness. It was a cocoon of an economic sanctuary on a scale never seen before in America. And the company grew, and grew, a growth assumed to continue forever.
Forever ended on June 1, 2009. Now General Motors is just a shell of its former self. In 1962, GM had 51% of the US auto market and 464,000 domestic employees; in 2009 that had shrunk to 23% of the market with 92,000 domestic employees. When the car designers and the car builders lost out to the marketers and the accountants years ago, the vulnerabilities began to set in. Not readily visible, but a hole was opening, just waiting for someone new to fill it. Workmanship became shoddy. Buyers’ needs for cars changed, but GM wasn’t listening to them anymore. Greater societal demands grew, but “we can’t do it” became the corporate mantra instead of “we will get there before anyone else.” And for reasons I still fail to understand, Detroit married itself to the gasoline industry and thereby became dependently whiplashed by those rogue capitalists. So a company once known for innovation became seen as an unresponsive can’t do obstructionist. The door was now open to someone who could see this opportunity and exploit it – and along came Toyota (now the biggest automaker) and Honda to do just that.
So good old American competition got turned on its head in the 1980s, and the once biggest competitor got out-competed. The new guys saw the gaps in the market no longer being served by GM, so they were happy to draw that market away by good products that lasted, better prices, appealing designs, and responsiveness to the safety and fuel goals that GM said could not be done.
Management stood lead-footed and blamed everyone else for its woes. Employees, now conditioned to expect lifetime job security, stuck their heads in the sand and remained dedicated to job security and rising incomes disconnected to market realities.
Now it has all come home to roost, like so many other course corrections Americans are experiencing. There is an incomprehensible chorus of protests being voiced: that now the US government has nationalized the auto industry; that the government is running the company, closing plants and dealerships, throwing employees out of jobs; that the government is inappropriately dictating new car directions and fuel standards that GM fought for years. And of course, President Obama is a socialist overly involved and now dictating the US economy.
What GM managers, workers, apparently some Congressmen/women and some of the general public seem to have forgotten is that last fall GM said it was broke, with enough money to last only a few months. It was GM that came to Washington looking for a handout to stay alive, not Washington traipsing to Detroit looking to give away money. Without such bailout money that was provided, GM would have disappeared and been completely out of business six months ago. Today a lot of people are still employed, not because of what GM leaders and workers did but because the American public bailed them out at their request. It is only right in such a circumstance that there are strings attached to that help, a refusal to simply underwrite business-as-usual failure. If you are insistent upon driving off a cliff, please don’t ask me to fill the tank of your car so that you can accomplish that goal.
Failure can come from several causes. The causes are often different for the new ventures in our lives than for the breakdown of an established order. For an established order, whether it is we as individuals or a collective organization, failure usually comes from an unwillingness to hear, a resistance to new learning, resulting in an inability to adapt. Such we have seen in the demise of General Motors. There is a shared sadness in all of these events. In the end, companies are simply groups of people moving together en masse. And when this many people move downhill at the same time, even if as a result of their own folly, and when a familiar icon is no longer what it once was, some part of all of us goes with them on that sad trip.
With General Motors, its collapse carries a different resonance than the failures of the innumerable financial institutions and mortgage companies we have witnessed. Those institutions were abstract entities removed from our sense of connection, done in by insatiable ambition combined with a no sense or responsibility to the general good for their decisions and conduct. But GM? This was a company cobbled together in the early 1900s from a series of mergers with various standalone individual car companies. Back when there were many car companies built by energetic entrepreneurs – Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Chevrolet, Pontiac. Henry Ford may have invented the assembly line and created a mass market for the automobile. But GM built that mass market to new levels of demand, and then became the predominant company to supply that demand. In the process, it became the largest manufacturing company in the world, and the biggest auto producer for over 75 years.
It was an institution that was synonymous with the American Dream, that was married to American’s love of the open road, that symbolized the growth of the middle class. Through its extended network of suppliers and franchised dealers, it anchored small-town America and its social fabric. Long before the Japanese form of life-long employment emerged, GM supported a multi-generational workforce with a rising blue-collar income, complete with something brand new: medical insurance to protect those employees and their families from debilitating illness. It was a cocoon of an economic sanctuary on a scale never seen before in America. And the company grew, and grew, a growth assumed to continue forever.
Forever ended on June 1, 2009. Now General Motors is just a shell of its former self. In 1962, GM had 51% of the US auto market and 464,000 domestic employees; in 2009 that had shrunk to 23% of the market with 92,000 domestic employees. When the car designers and the car builders lost out to the marketers and the accountants years ago, the vulnerabilities began to set in. Not readily visible, but a hole was opening, just waiting for someone new to fill it. Workmanship became shoddy. Buyers’ needs for cars changed, but GM wasn’t listening to them anymore. Greater societal demands grew, but “we can’t do it” became the corporate mantra instead of “we will get there before anyone else.” And for reasons I still fail to understand, Detroit married itself to the gasoline industry and thereby became dependently whiplashed by those rogue capitalists. So a company once known for innovation became seen as an unresponsive can’t do obstructionist. The door was now open to someone who could see this opportunity and exploit it – and along came Toyota (now the biggest automaker) and Honda to do just that.
So good old American competition got turned on its head in the 1980s, and the once biggest competitor got out-competed. The new guys saw the gaps in the market no longer being served by GM, so they were happy to draw that market away by good products that lasted, better prices, appealing designs, and responsiveness to the safety and fuel goals that GM said could not be done.
Management stood lead-footed and blamed everyone else for its woes. Employees, now conditioned to expect lifetime job security, stuck their heads in the sand and remained dedicated to job security and rising incomes disconnected to market realities.
Now it has all come home to roost, like so many other course corrections Americans are experiencing. There is an incomprehensible chorus of protests being voiced: that now the US government has nationalized the auto industry; that the government is running the company, closing plants and dealerships, throwing employees out of jobs; that the government is inappropriately dictating new car directions and fuel standards that GM fought for years. And of course, President Obama is a socialist overly involved and now dictating the US economy.
What GM managers, workers, apparently some Congressmen/women and some of the general public seem to have forgotten is that last fall GM said it was broke, with enough money to last only a few months. It was GM that came to Washington looking for a handout to stay alive, not Washington traipsing to Detroit looking to give away money. Without such bailout money that was provided, GM would have disappeared and been completely out of business six months ago. Today a lot of people are still employed, not because of what GM leaders and workers did but because the American public bailed them out at their request. It is only right in such a circumstance that there are strings attached to that help, a refusal to simply underwrite business-as-usual failure. If you are insistent upon driving off a cliff, please don’t ask me to fill the tank of your car so that you can accomplish that goal.
Failure can come from several causes. The causes are often different for the new ventures in our lives than for the breakdown of an established order. For an established order, whether it is we as individuals or a collective organization, failure usually comes from an unwillingness to hear, a resistance to new learning, resulting in an inability to adapt. Such we have seen in the demise of General Motors. There is a shared sadness in all of these events. In the end, companies are simply groups of people moving together en masse. And when this many people move downhill at the same time, even if as a result of their own folly, and when a familiar icon is no longer what it once was, some part of all of us goes with them on that sad trip.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Go Quietly Into The Night - Please
For the last several months, we have witnessed the sorry spectacle of former Vice President Dick Cheney speaking to anyone who will listen to his defense of his conduct in the Bush Administration’s war on terrorists. Inexplicably, he continues to enjoy airtime whenever he speaks, even though his message never changes except to progressively backpedal and hedge his story of “the facts.” The once near-invisible vice president is now so ubiquitously in the public eye that I fully expect him to show up at my granddaughter’s kindergarten graduation if only he is promised a microphone.
His actions are unprecedented for a former vice president. Except perhaps for Aaron Burr’s post-government notoriety and Al Gore’s Nobel prize-winning actions after serving as vice president, other vice presidents not ascending to the presidency have quietly left Washington and gone home, fading thereafter into historical oblivion. Many of them have agreed with John Adams who described the vice presidency as “The most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” or John Nance Garner who described the job as “not worth a bucket of warm piss” (later changed to “warm spit” by the news media!).
Not so Dick Cheney. This was perhaps the most powerful vice president in our history. In George Bush’s corporate model presidency, Dick Cheney was the all-powerful Chief Operating Officer managing the implementation of the CEO/President’s policies and directions. By all accounts, he managed at a very deep and detailed level, tolerating no dissent, accepting no roadblocks to his intentions and decisions. Underlings that dared to disagree were sent packing. And until perhaps his last year in office, when Condi Rice’s and Robert Gates’ more temperate views found some acceptance, his reign was absolute. The American public was a nuisance to be disdained, whose opinions were publicly acknowledged to be inconsequential and irrelevant.
But now the secret government is coming into the full light. And what went on, predominately under the all-shielding name of “national security,” is proving to be quite ugly. If not outright illegal, then certainly an affront to Constitutional implications, the values we celebrate each July 4th, and the national self-image we claim for ourselves and hope that others see in us. So now the previously unthinkable is happening: the all-powerful, never-questioned VP/COO is being questioned. About his decisions, his rationale, his intent, and most importantly, his methods. And Mr. Cheney does not know how to handle his new, now assailable status.
The centerpiece of the questions is about our government’s use of torture to extract terrorist intelligence information. That our actions constituted torture is essentially beyond debate, understood by most all Americans and clarified by international law and treaty. Only Dick Cheney, his close associates, the perpetrators themselves, and Fox News really think otherwise. What has been subsequently revealed is that the claimed “legal justification” for these actions was bad lawyering at its worst, and even these bad legal opinions were issued after the torture had already commenced. And that most torture exercises were not done by trained, experienced interrogators, but by for-hire contractors without interrogation qualifications, even though valuable information was already being gained from traditional, accepted interrogation techniques. Yet we used the oft-cited technique of waterboarding 183 times on one prisoner; if it was such an effective technique, why was it needed 183 times to make its point – the frequency itself becoming yet another form of torture? Or as Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota put it, “It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning ... I’ll put it to you this way: you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
Dick Cheney argues two points: that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” (i.e. torture) yielded actionable information and thereby saved American lives; and Obama’s elimination of these techniques has made our country less safe to a future attack (a despicable statement for a former vice president to make about a sitting president). In essence, the goal to save American lives and prevent another 9-11 justifies anything Dick Cheney did. Yet what kind of country, what kind of America has been saved if this is how we do business? I have no doubt that had we slowly sliced off one finger at a time until a prisoner’s hands were gone entirely that he would say almost anything we wanted. But is this what we want to be known for? Where is the line that we dare not cross? Have we become the very Saddam Hussein we claimed to despise, operating our own version of an Iraqi terror prison? At what point does our hatred, combined with an “anything goes” sense of absolute righteousness, lead us to becoming that very thing that we claim to hate? “We have met the enemy, and it [is indeed] ---- us.”
In this dangerous world, it is my full expectation that America will be attacked again by extremists, whether foreign or local (remember Oklahoma City). The twin towers were originally bombed in 1993 under Clinton’s watch; 9-11 happened 8 years later under Bush. Our fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has contained the terrorists there for now, hampering their planning and execution of that next attack. But it will tragically come, even if by a delayed timetable, and in spite of everything our military, police, and intelligence communities can reasonably prevent. I have no doubt that when that inevitability occurs, Dick Cheney will be the first to stand on his soapbox and yell “I was right.” And that scenario is the most distasteful thing of all about Dick Cheney’s present conduct.
The former vice president has claimed that his methods worked. But he has never proven that they were required in lieu of our traditional interrogation methods that have kept us on a proper moral compass over the years. He is now being called to account. From his previous power-driven role, it is an accounting that he is unprepared to endure, therefore he resorts to the old rhetorical tricks of skipping over the substantive issues and instead just questions the questioners, slanders the critics, and impugns the integrity of his prosecutors.
There are lessons in this for all of us. We all must confront our demons. And when our demons lead us to arrogance, to believe we are beyond questioning, and that the noble end allows us to justify whatever conduct we choose, then a large dose of humility is the required antidote to be taken. Dick Cheney lost his job on January 21, 2009; apparently he did not get his memo of termination. He needs to go home, write his inevitable book, and fade from our view. He had his eight years; he has been replaced; it is other people’s turn at bat without his attempted reconstruction of the past. Like it or not, his legacy is not on the speaker’s platform. It is now out of his control, passed on to the public record and to the work of the historians.
He had his time, and his time is now over. True class – in sports, in politics, in life – is knowing when it is time to put the bat down and move on. It is now that time for him to move on, to go quietly into the night, and to leave the world to the next leaders.
His actions are unprecedented for a former vice president. Except perhaps for Aaron Burr’s post-government notoriety and Al Gore’s Nobel prize-winning actions after serving as vice president, other vice presidents not ascending to the presidency have quietly left Washington and gone home, fading thereafter into historical oblivion. Many of them have agreed with John Adams who described the vice presidency as “The most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” or John Nance Garner who described the job as “not worth a bucket of warm piss” (later changed to “warm spit” by the news media!).
Not so Dick Cheney. This was perhaps the most powerful vice president in our history. In George Bush’s corporate model presidency, Dick Cheney was the all-powerful Chief Operating Officer managing the implementation of the CEO/President’s policies and directions. By all accounts, he managed at a very deep and detailed level, tolerating no dissent, accepting no roadblocks to his intentions and decisions. Underlings that dared to disagree were sent packing. And until perhaps his last year in office, when Condi Rice’s and Robert Gates’ more temperate views found some acceptance, his reign was absolute. The American public was a nuisance to be disdained, whose opinions were publicly acknowledged to be inconsequential and irrelevant.
But now the secret government is coming into the full light. And what went on, predominately under the all-shielding name of “national security,” is proving to be quite ugly. If not outright illegal, then certainly an affront to Constitutional implications, the values we celebrate each July 4th, and the national self-image we claim for ourselves and hope that others see in us. So now the previously unthinkable is happening: the all-powerful, never-questioned VP/COO is being questioned. About his decisions, his rationale, his intent, and most importantly, his methods. And Mr. Cheney does not know how to handle his new, now assailable status.
The centerpiece of the questions is about our government’s use of torture to extract terrorist intelligence information. That our actions constituted torture is essentially beyond debate, understood by most all Americans and clarified by international law and treaty. Only Dick Cheney, his close associates, the perpetrators themselves, and Fox News really think otherwise. What has been subsequently revealed is that the claimed “legal justification” for these actions was bad lawyering at its worst, and even these bad legal opinions were issued after the torture had already commenced. And that most torture exercises were not done by trained, experienced interrogators, but by for-hire contractors without interrogation qualifications, even though valuable information was already being gained from traditional, accepted interrogation techniques. Yet we used the oft-cited technique of waterboarding 183 times on one prisoner; if it was such an effective technique, why was it needed 183 times to make its point – the frequency itself becoming yet another form of torture? Or as Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota put it, “It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning ... I’ll put it to you this way: you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
Dick Cheney argues two points: that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” (i.e. torture) yielded actionable information and thereby saved American lives; and Obama’s elimination of these techniques has made our country less safe to a future attack (a despicable statement for a former vice president to make about a sitting president). In essence, the goal to save American lives and prevent another 9-11 justifies anything Dick Cheney did. Yet what kind of country, what kind of America has been saved if this is how we do business? I have no doubt that had we slowly sliced off one finger at a time until a prisoner’s hands were gone entirely that he would say almost anything we wanted. But is this what we want to be known for? Where is the line that we dare not cross? Have we become the very Saddam Hussein we claimed to despise, operating our own version of an Iraqi terror prison? At what point does our hatred, combined with an “anything goes” sense of absolute righteousness, lead us to becoming that very thing that we claim to hate? “We have met the enemy, and it [is indeed] ---- us.”
In this dangerous world, it is my full expectation that America will be attacked again by extremists, whether foreign or local (remember Oklahoma City). The twin towers were originally bombed in 1993 under Clinton’s watch; 9-11 happened 8 years later under Bush. Our fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has contained the terrorists there for now, hampering their planning and execution of that next attack. But it will tragically come, even if by a delayed timetable, and in spite of everything our military, police, and intelligence communities can reasonably prevent. I have no doubt that when that inevitability occurs, Dick Cheney will be the first to stand on his soapbox and yell “I was right.” And that scenario is the most distasteful thing of all about Dick Cheney’s present conduct.
The former vice president has claimed that his methods worked. But he has never proven that they were required in lieu of our traditional interrogation methods that have kept us on a proper moral compass over the years. He is now being called to account. From his previous power-driven role, it is an accounting that he is unprepared to endure, therefore he resorts to the old rhetorical tricks of skipping over the substantive issues and instead just questions the questioners, slanders the critics, and impugns the integrity of his prosecutors.
There are lessons in this for all of us. We all must confront our demons. And when our demons lead us to arrogance, to believe we are beyond questioning, and that the noble end allows us to justify whatever conduct we choose, then a large dose of humility is the required antidote to be taken. Dick Cheney lost his job on January 21, 2009; apparently he did not get his memo of termination. He needs to go home, write his inevitable book, and fade from our view. He had his eight years; he has been replaced; it is other people’s turn at bat without his attempted reconstruction of the past. Like it or not, his legacy is not on the speaker’s platform. It is now out of his control, passed on to the public record and to the work of the historians.
He had his time, and his time is now over. True class – in sports, in politics, in life – is knowing when it is time to put the bat down and move on. It is now that time for him to move on, to go quietly into the night, and to leave the world to the next leaders.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
From Irrelevance to Absurdity
I have written before lamenting the loss of the Republican Party I knew in my youth from my father. A political party with important historical names --- Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and examples in my lifetime that included Eisenhower, Dirksen, Goldwater, Baker, Lodge, Rockefeller and Reagan. A party broad enough to contain the “silk stocking” Republicans of the northeast alongside the conservative individualists of the southwest. A potent force in U.S. political history. Yet not one of those historical individuals would recognize the collective irresponsibility of that which now passes for today’s Republican Party. Witness the following examples of political pandering:
1) Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, who continually confounds rationality by:
- saying that Obama is seeking to set up “reeducation camps” to brainwash our children;
- introducing a bill to prohibit one world-wide currency, notwithstanding the U.S. dollar’s de facto role as just that for 60 years;
- inexplicitly announcing that “carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the world, so it does not cause global warming and so we don’t have to worry about it.” (I guess unlike black widow spiders, which also occur “naturally” in nature but which I will still choose to avoid!)
2) Norm Coleman, senator from Minnesota, who all electoral commissions have determined lost his reelection bid, but who refuses to take the classy statesman path and accept his defeat 6 months after the election, making the Gore/Bush debacle in Florida look like a textbook perfection.
3) Representative Spencer Bachus from Alabama, who announced that he personally knows of “17 socialists in Congress,” borrowing from Senator Joe McCarthy’s frighteningly injurious accusations of the 1950s, and who similarly thus far refuses to name any one of the 17. He further ignores that being a “socialist” is neither a U.S. political party nor an illegal status outlawed anywhere.
4) Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who announced that Texas may secede from the United States, raising eyebrows from those who were never fully convinced that Texas had ever truly joined the U.S. in the first place. A governor who chooses to ignore the history lesson of the War Between the States 140 years ago that denied the right of secession. (Texas was a loser in that war, by the way).
5) Continuing attempts by individual or several senators to block various Obama cabinet appointments, with flimsy or even no reason given, only to subsequently have them overwhelmingly approved in the end. What was achieved? As examples, Richard Burr of NC singularly opposed Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee Iraq War veteran universally praised by veteran groups, as Assistant Secretary of the VA; John Cornyn of Texas opposed Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; Arlen Specter opposed Eric Holder as Attorney General. And most recently, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana is holding up the nomination of Craig Fugate as head of FEMA because he doesn’t like FEMA’s answers to how it will proceed with high-risk flood zones that will affect rebuilding in Louisiana. How exactly does depriving an agency of its leadership help provide new leadership and answers?
6) Then there is Dick Cheney, the scariest-person-now-no-longer-in-government-who just-won’t-go-away, whose negative comments about everything that has happened since the January 20th inauguration, and whose ends-justify-the-means defense of Bush administration torture exceeds my capacity for thoughtful response.
7) And lastly, there is the Fox News (aka the Republican Party Communications Directorate) inspired Tea Bag Protest, in which a bunch of folks got together to protest a) taxes and b) income redistribution. Except that the total number of protestors nationwide was probably less that those filling Grant Park one night awhile back in Chicago to hear Obama’s victory speech. A great many of those protestors are likely already included in Obama’s tax cuts for 90% of the population. Virtually every one of them will no doubt be gladly accepting their social security retirement payments when the time comes, which is the biggest income redistribution program in the country. Oh, and in 1773 the original tea protest in Boston was against taxation without representation; our current taxes were passed with representation, even if one does not like their representative’s response.
Once again, at a time when serious dialog, creative ideas, and political courage are needed, the current group of political lightweights in today’s Republican Party is found lacking. The most recent poll I saw shows only 21% of voters declaring themselves as Republicans. These are not “minority party” numbers, these are 3rd-party numbers. George Corley Wallace in ’68 numbers, Ross Perot in ’92 numbers, just a step ahead of Ralph Nader Green Party numbers. It is a party at a loss for message, direction and spokespersons. And if it were not for the aforementioned Fox News and the party’s self-anointed spokesperson Rush Limbaugh, they would be getting just about the same 3rd-party level of press attention.
Tax cuts and medical insurance tax credits are meaningless to the unemployed. Sending military forces against the bad guys is a hollow threat when you already have two wars going on, a war-weary public, and only estranged allies. A balanced budget is a death knell to an economy reeling from a lack of consumer spending. Talk of free enterprise capitalism wins no fans when people are reeling from the excesses of irresponsible deregulation. Republicans have to come up with a new message instead of the old news, and that message cannot be one that panders to the hysterical conspiracies of a decreasing number of citizens. It is not a time for trying to extract revenge for losing the 2008 election using political and rhetorical tricks. It is a time for governing and leading.
1) Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, who continually confounds rationality by:
- saying that Obama is seeking to set up “reeducation camps” to brainwash our children;
- introducing a bill to prohibit one world-wide currency, notwithstanding the U.S. dollar’s de facto role as just that for 60 years;
- inexplicitly announcing that “carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the world, so it does not cause global warming and so we don’t have to worry about it.” (I guess unlike black widow spiders, which also occur “naturally” in nature but which I will still choose to avoid!)
2) Norm Coleman, senator from Minnesota, who all electoral commissions have determined lost his reelection bid, but who refuses to take the classy statesman path and accept his defeat 6 months after the election, making the Gore/Bush debacle in Florida look like a textbook perfection.
3) Representative Spencer Bachus from Alabama, who announced that he personally knows of “17 socialists in Congress,” borrowing from Senator Joe McCarthy’s frighteningly injurious accusations of the 1950s, and who similarly thus far refuses to name any one of the 17. He further ignores that being a “socialist” is neither a U.S. political party nor an illegal status outlawed anywhere.
4) Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who announced that Texas may secede from the United States, raising eyebrows from those who were never fully convinced that Texas had ever truly joined the U.S. in the first place. A governor who chooses to ignore the history lesson of the War Between the States 140 years ago that denied the right of secession. (Texas was a loser in that war, by the way).
5) Continuing attempts by individual or several senators to block various Obama cabinet appointments, with flimsy or even no reason given, only to subsequently have them overwhelmingly approved in the end. What was achieved? As examples, Richard Burr of NC singularly opposed Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee Iraq War veteran universally praised by veteran groups, as Assistant Secretary of the VA; John Cornyn of Texas opposed Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; Arlen Specter opposed Eric Holder as Attorney General. And most recently, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana is holding up the nomination of Craig Fugate as head of FEMA because he doesn’t like FEMA’s answers to how it will proceed with high-risk flood zones that will affect rebuilding in Louisiana. How exactly does depriving an agency of its leadership help provide new leadership and answers?
6) Then there is Dick Cheney, the scariest-person-now-no-longer-in-government-who just-won’t-go-away, whose negative comments about everything that has happened since the January 20th inauguration, and whose ends-justify-the-means defense of Bush administration torture exceeds my capacity for thoughtful response.
7) And lastly, there is the Fox News (aka the Republican Party Communications Directorate) inspired Tea Bag Protest, in which a bunch of folks got together to protest a) taxes and b) income redistribution. Except that the total number of protestors nationwide was probably less that those filling Grant Park one night awhile back in Chicago to hear Obama’s victory speech. A great many of those protestors are likely already included in Obama’s tax cuts for 90% of the population. Virtually every one of them will no doubt be gladly accepting their social security retirement payments when the time comes, which is the biggest income redistribution program in the country. Oh, and in 1773 the original tea protest in Boston was against taxation without representation; our current taxes were passed with representation, even if one does not like their representative’s response.
Once again, at a time when serious dialog, creative ideas, and political courage are needed, the current group of political lightweights in today’s Republican Party is found lacking. The most recent poll I saw shows only 21% of voters declaring themselves as Republicans. These are not “minority party” numbers, these are 3rd-party numbers. George Corley Wallace in ’68 numbers, Ross Perot in ’92 numbers, just a step ahead of Ralph Nader Green Party numbers. It is a party at a loss for message, direction and spokespersons. And if it were not for the aforementioned Fox News and the party’s self-anointed spokesperson Rush Limbaugh, they would be getting just about the same 3rd-party level of press attention.
Tax cuts and medical insurance tax credits are meaningless to the unemployed. Sending military forces against the bad guys is a hollow threat when you already have two wars going on, a war-weary public, and only estranged allies. A balanced budget is a death knell to an economy reeling from a lack of consumer spending. Talk of free enterprise capitalism wins no fans when people are reeling from the excesses of irresponsible deregulation. Republicans have to come up with a new message instead of the old news, and that message cannot be one that panders to the hysterical conspiracies of a decreasing number of citizens. It is not a time for trying to extract revenge for losing the 2008 election using political and rhetorical tricks. It is a time for governing and leading.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Evolution and Creationism
(The following was published in the March 22nd edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times.)
Evolution versus Intelligent Design continues to be another either/or issue. But the problem is that people are arguing about two different things. Science focuses on how we got to where we are as human beings. The Spiritual focuses on why we are here at all. Science focuses on the mechanics of how we look like we do and how our motor parts enable us to function. The Spiritual focuses on why human beings were created in the first place, assuming that some “One” intended for it to happen in a purposeful way for an intended outcome (e.g. everlasting life in heaven). Science is consumed with that which is visible, thereby “provable and knowable”; the Spiritual assumes a greater force that invisible to the eye, thereby “improvable yet knowable.”
I do not know how one can sit on a beach and watch the waves continually roll in from as far out as one can see, or sit on a mountain and watch a brilliantly colorful sunset, without knowing that this is all well beyond man’s capabilities. I do not know how a scientist, peering through the highest powered lens at cellular images, cannot but be continually amazed at the intricate design conceived in order to make our incredibly sophisticated life form work.
Creationism is about the Design of earthly existence. Evolution is about the Mechanics for how the Design is fulfilled. New buildings are constructed using everything we have learned about physical laws, materials composition and the art of color and angles. Modern day computers can solve problems, create images and transmit information over thousands of miles in a near-instant using logic, mathematics, and electrical principles. An automobile can move us in style, safety and comfort based upon principles of combustion, inertia and mechanics. Behind each of these was an architect, a computer programmer, or an engineer with a Visionary Design and Great Idea who knew what needed to come together to make it happen.
The birth of a human being is a spectacular convergence of component parts and intangible thoughts. To look at mind, thought and body and their interactions at the detail level of their complexity is as spectacular as that overwhelming view from the mountaintop. But the human being also first needed a Design, followed by the Mechanics necessary to carry out that design.
It is very clear that part of the Mechanic is for human beings to evolve into their form. Gradual, step-by-step growth to becoming fully formed is the rule in all life forms. A human being does not emanate from the womb as a whole and completed adult. An infant began at a cellular level in a union of sperm and egg. That simple cell evolved over time in shape, color, substance and volume to ultimately become the baby we see. We then evolve over the course of our lifetime, gradually changing, almost imperceptibly, from birth to adulthood to old age, one moment and one day at a time. Given what we see in our own individual lives, is it not safe to assume that the whole of humanity would have evolved in some manner over the full history of our ancestors? Evolution serving as the tool by which Intelligent Design is made to happen?
How do we reconcile the poetry of creation stories with the science? Easy. For example, I could describe on multiple levels the fried chicken dinner my Mother used to make. I could describe how she took pieces of chicken and fried them within a detailed recipe of flour coating; boiled potatoes, mashed them with added milk, covered them with gravy; opened a can of peas and heated them on the stove. Or I could describe the entire “farm-to-plate” production chain that brings the chicken’s egg to its ultimate place on my plate. Finally, I could detail how the molecular structure of a chicken changes in hot oil in a skillet. Each version of my dinner’s creation story is correct and compatible, yet told from different vantage points.
We may argue over who truly knows the Great Designer that created the human plan. We may argue over how much science remains to be discovered before really knowing how our human thing works. We can never fully know that which we call God. Science will always have one more level to discover. In the end, both God and Science are needed to create all that we see. And both remain unknowable mysteries in our human lifetime.
Evolution versus Intelligent Design continues to be another either/or issue. But the problem is that people are arguing about two different things. Science focuses on how we got to where we are as human beings. The Spiritual focuses on why we are here at all. Science focuses on the mechanics of how we look like we do and how our motor parts enable us to function. The Spiritual focuses on why human beings were created in the first place, assuming that some “One” intended for it to happen in a purposeful way for an intended outcome (e.g. everlasting life in heaven). Science is consumed with that which is visible, thereby “provable and knowable”; the Spiritual assumes a greater force that invisible to the eye, thereby “improvable yet knowable.”
I do not know how one can sit on a beach and watch the waves continually roll in from as far out as one can see, or sit on a mountain and watch a brilliantly colorful sunset, without knowing that this is all well beyond man’s capabilities. I do not know how a scientist, peering through the highest powered lens at cellular images, cannot but be continually amazed at the intricate design conceived in order to make our incredibly sophisticated life form work.
Creationism is about the Design of earthly existence. Evolution is about the Mechanics for how the Design is fulfilled. New buildings are constructed using everything we have learned about physical laws, materials composition and the art of color and angles. Modern day computers can solve problems, create images and transmit information over thousands of miles in a near-instant using logic, mathematics, and electrical principles. An automobile can move us in style, safety and comfort based upon principles of combustion, inertia and mechanics. Behind each of these was an architect, a computer programmer, or an engineer with a Visionary Design and Great Idea who knew what needed to come together to make it happen.
The birth of a human being is a spectacular convergence of component parts and intangible thoughts. To look at mind, thought and body and their interactions at the detail level of their complexity is as spectacular as that overwhelming view from the mountaintop. But the human being also first needed a Design, followed by the Mechanics necessary to carry out that design.
It is very clear that part of the Mechanic is for human beings to evolve into their form. Gradual, step-by-step growth to becoming fully formed is the rule in all life forms. A human being does not emanate from the womb as a whole and completed adult. An infant began at a cellular level in a union of sperm and egg. That simple cell evolved over time in shape, color, substance and volume to ultimately become the baby we see. We then evolve over the course of our lifetime, gradually changing, almost imperceptibly, from birth to adulthood to old age, one moment and one day at a time. Given what we see in our own individual lives, is it not safe to assume that the whole of humanity would have evolved in some manner over the full history of our ancestors? Evolution serving as the tool by which Intelligent Design is made to happen?
How do we reconcile the poetry of creation stories with the science? Easy. For example, I could describe on multiple levels the fried chicken dinner my Mother used to make. I could describe how she took pieces of chicken and fried them within a detailed recipe of flour coating; boiled potatoes, mashed them with added milk, covered them with gravy; opened a can of peas and heated them on the stove. Or I could describe the entire “farm-to-plate” production chain that brings the chicken’s egg to its ultimate place on my plate. Finally, I could detail how the molecular structure of a chicken changes in hot oil in a skillet. Each version of my dinner’s creation story is correct and compatible, yet told from different vantage points.
We may argue over who truly knows the Great Designer that created the human plan. We may argue over how much science remains to be discovered before really knowing how our human thing works. We can never fully know that which we call God. Science will always have one more level to discover. In the end, both God and Science are needed to create all that we see. And both remain unknowable mysteries in our human lifetime.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Welfare and Socialism for Whom?
Soon, the debate over the future delivery of healthcare to Americans will move into full swing. It will be a long and contentious discussion. Hopefully access to good health care as part of American citizenship will be an accepted baseline in the coming discussion. There will be many good differing opinions about the role of governments in a future healthcare structure. Unfortunately, we can also count on hearing some screams about government-provided healthcare being “socialized medicine,” or how such would create new “welfare entitlements.” I suggest that whenever we hear these words, we are listening to nothing of value in this most critical discussion. When one has no real understanding of the very real human needs or has no intellectual understanding of the difficulties and complexities yet opportunities involved in this arena, then we will see this jump to empty codewords. Codewords intended to scare working people into believing that they will lose control over their own lives (socialism). Or that lesser-deserving people will get what they have not paid for and thereby do not deserve (welfare). Except virtually everyone has now become prisoner to a healthcare system that is out of control, and is not getting access to the healthcare that they need in a financially responsible manner.
If the argument is that government provided services are socialism, and underwriting services for those who cannot afford them is welfare, then what are we to do with all of the socialism and welfare that is already in place that we all enjoy and take for granted? The Constitution charged the federal government to provide for the common defense, so it maintains a military to protect us. The US government has provided a postal service since Ben Franklin started it. They do a remarkable job taking my scrawled handwriting on a paper envelope and delivering it 2-3 days later to someone’s mailbox nailed to their house out in the countryside thousands of miles away. All for 42 cents. The FAA keeps track of thousands of airlines and millions of passengers in the air everyday. In spite of how badly run the corporate US airlines have become, we have a minimal occurrence of accidents and deaths from that congested travel. The federal government already extensively and successfully provides direct healthcare to millions of military personnel and their families, to veterans, and to Congressmen/women – care not available to most of us. It provides health insurance to millions of senior citizens. It provides additional health care and/or insurance to other millions of disabled people and children. So let us please stop talking about government-sponsored health care as if it is some brand-new invention the devil.
It is a long list of services the US government provides every day. Sometimes bungled by obscure bureaucrats buried in the bowels of the organizational charts, out of touch with the diverse realities of small-town America. But what have been your experiences of late trying to navigate customer services in free-enterprise corporate America? Hello, India! Both government and private enterprise have their successes and failures.
If “welfare entitlement” is supposedly about something for nothing, then what about all of the corporate and personal welfare we all take advantage of every day. Our tax code is filled with special treatment for selected businesses and classes of individuals, which is why Warren Buffet and his peers pay less percentage income tax than his secretary. The Department of Agriculture pays subsidies, “not to grow” programs, and price supports for farmers, most of which goes to big agri-business growers and passive investors (David Letterman a farmer?), not the family farmer of our mythic dreams. Who among us is willing to give up our mortgage interest deduction, originally written for the home construction industry to stimulate home ownership. A deduction none of the millions of renters enjoys. And, of course, our employer-provided health insurance which is free and non-taxable, even though it is worth thousands of dollars in additional compensation. Explain that supposed fairness to the millions of Americans unemployed or employed-without-benefits.
And, of course, there are all the civilian jobs created by the Pentagon for procurements and defense bases across the country that even the military says are not needed. Or the biggest of all socialistic actions by our government – the first governmental commitment in the world, honored to this day, that all citizen children will receive a basic education regardless of their family’s ability to pay, underwritten by all adult citizens who thereby give back to others the gift they received, even while private enterprise schools also successfully coexist side-by-side for those parents who wish to pay over and above.
The list goes on endlessly. One person’s socialism is another person’s entitlement. So if some critic wants to stand up and yell “socialism” or “welfare,” then the only logical response should be, “So what government entitlements you now get are you willing to give up?” There can emerge many different ways to tame this healthcare beast. Let us allow for both private industry and government roles where each is best positioned. Let individual initiative do what it does so marvelously, while common social fabric needs are being concurrently met. But speak to me of substance, of ideas that lead to outcomes, without labels. Let us all drink from a cup of humility, commit to intellectual honesty, and level the playing field equally for everyone before we stand on the dishonest stage of the rhetorical demagoguery of codewords.
If the argument is that government provided services are socialism, and underwriting services for those who cannot afford them is welfare, then what are we to do with all of the socialism and welfare that is already in place that we all enjoy and take for granted? The Constitution charged the federal government to provide for the common defense, so it maintains a military to protect us. The US government has provided a postal service since Ben Franklin started it. They do a remarkable job taking my scrawled handwriting on a paper envelope and delivering it 2-3 days later to someone’s mailbox nailed to their house out in the countryside thousands of miles away. All for 42 cents. The FAA keeps track of thousands of airlines and millions of passengers in the air everyday. In spite of how badly run the corporate US airlines have become, we have a minimal occurrence of accidents and deaths from that congested travel. The federal government already extensively and successfully provides direct healthcare to millions of military personnel and their families, to veterans, and to Congressmen/women – care not available to most of us. It provides health insurance to millions of senior citizens. It provides additional health care and/or insurance to other millions of disabled people and children. So let us please stop talking about government-sponsored health care as if it is some brand-new invention the devil.
It is a long list of services the US government provides every day. Sometimes bungled by obscure bureaucrats buried in the bowels of the organizational charts, out of touch with the diverse realities of small-town America. But what have been your experiences of late trying to navigate customer services in free-enterprise corporate America? Hello, India! Both government and private enterprise have their successes and failures.
If “welfare entitlement” is supposedly about something for nothing, then what about all of the corporate and personal welfare we all take advantage of every day. Our tax code is filled with special treatment for selected businesses and classes of individuals, which is why Warren Buffet and his peers pay less percentage income tax than his secretary. The Department of Agriculture pays subsidies, “not to grow” programs, and price supports for farmers, most of which goes to big agri-business growers and passive investors (David Letterman a farmer?), not the family farmer of our mythic dreams. Who among us is willing to give up our mortgage interest deduction, originally written for the home construction industry to stimulate home ownership. A deduction none of the millions of renters enjoys. And, of course, our employer-provided health insurance which is free and non-taxable, even though it is worth thousands of dollars in additional compensation. Explain that supposed fairness to the millions of Americans unemployed or employed-without-benefits.
And, of course, there are all the civilian jobs created by the Pentagon for procurements and defense bases across the country that even the military says are not needed. Or the biggest of all socialistic actions by our government – the first governmental commitment in the world, honored to this day, that all citizen children will receive a basic education regardless of their family’s ability to pay, underwritten by all adult citizens who thereby give back to others the gift they received, even while private enterprise schools also successfully coexist side-by-side for those parents who wish to pay over and above.
The list goes on endlessly. One person’s socialism is another person’s entitlement. So if some critic wants to stand up and yell “socialism” or “welfare,” then the only logical response should be, “So what government entitlements you now get are you willing to give up?” There can emerge many different ways to tame this healthcare beast. Let us allow for both private industry and government roles where each is best positioned. Let individual initiative do what it does so marvelously, while common social fabric needs are being concurrently met. But speak to me of substance, of ideas that lead to outcomes, without labels. Let us all drink from a cup of humility, commit to intellectual honesty, and level the playing field equally for everyone before we stand on the dishonest stage of the rhetorical demagoguery of codewords.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Regional Diversity
Over the past four months I had the good fortune to spend this year’s winter in Southern California instead of my home in Western North Carolina. Given all of the extended nightmarish weather experienced across the country this winter, going without snow for the first time in 40 years was a welcomed change. To get to Southern California from North Carolina, there are only two options: on I-40 across middle Tennessee / Arkansas / Oklahoma and northern Texas / New Mexico / Arizona, or the deep south route on I-10 through southern Mississippi / Alabama / Louisiana / Texas / New Mexico / Arizona. Either route over the 2500 miles will display a vast array of images, vegetation, distances of view, and varying weather conditions, often dramatic and sometimes bordering on the extreme. From such a visual contrast mile by mile, one is reminded of the extraordinary differences in this country’s landscape, yet its unifying beauty.
I have often said that to truly understand a people, you have to go to their place: stand on their land; feel the wind, the cold and the heat of the place; walk the flatness or the rises; eat the native food God made available on that land. Then, as you listen to them talk about their history – of migration, of wars, or desperate struggles for survival, of periods of alternating power & prosperity and then weakness & desperation – their stories, values, opinions, politics and cultural way of life begins to come alive within a context. Without that critical understanding and appreciation of their context, you hear their story only through your own lens, thereby not really understanding it at all.
Unlike most except the biggest of countries, the U.S. does not have one topography that molds a common context for us, such as Japan’s experience for example. Surviving the land means something far different to the New Englander than to the New Mexican. Shelter requires something very different for the Floridian than for the North Dakotan. The commute to work is a different regimen to the office worker in Huntington Beach, California than to the farmer in Van Wert, Ohio. The dusty heat of El Paso, Texas summers calls for a different rhythm and tolerance than the deep snows of winters in Buffalo, New York around the Great Lakes region. And the 90% humidity of Fort Smith, Arkansas creates a different form of heat than the extreme 15% dryness of Tucson, Arizona, regardless of the thermometer reading.
Basic values of patriotism, faith and religious observances, compassion towards others, charity to those in need, and respect for law and democratic process can be shared universally. Yet how those values are expressed and fulfilled cannot, and should not, be the same, given our incredible diversity of situations. Nevertheless, I continue to be amazed at the ongoing efforts of some people to try to enforce an ill-fitting homogeneity at a detailed level across this land. Be it a faceless bureaucrat dictating educational standards and teaching methodologies; a building code based upon big-city realities pushed out to rural communities; a religious denominational belief and practice attempted to be made a secular standard; architected homes completely mis-fitted in style to the land they sit on and the historical culture they embody; or the mandated allocation of governmental budgets applied to specific local action programs – all of these reflect a supposed knowing of “what is best locally” without any real understanding of what local really means.
Tip O’Neil’s famous observation was that “all politics is local.” Over the past years we have dangerously tried to turn that on its head. The idea was not to tell the locals what to do, but to listen to the locals and then give them a wide swath and meaningful support to pursue their individual directions. Allow people to respond as best appropriate to local conditions and priorities. We should remember that our view is our own, but other views are not necessarily a disagreement with us. They may rather reflect a life that is often outside of our own field of vision, and thereby outside of our real understanding.
I have often said that to truly understand a people, you have to go to their place: stand on their land; feel the wind, the cold and the heat of the place; walk the flatness or the rises; eat the native food God made available on that land. Then, as you listen to them talk about their history – of migration, of wars, or desperate struggles for survival, of periods of alternating power & prosperity and then weakness & desperation – their stories, values, opinions, politics and cultural way of life begins to come alive within a context. Without that critical understanding and appreciation of their context, you hear their story only through your own lens, thereby not really understanding it at all.
Unlike most except the biggest of countries, the U.S. does not have one topography that molds a common context for us, such as Japan’s experience for example. Surviving the land means something far different to the New Englander than to the New Mexican. Shelter requires something very different for the Floridian than for the North Dakotan. The commute to work is a different regimen to the office worker in Huntington Beach, California than to the farmer in Van Wert, Ohio. The dusty heat of El Paso, Texas summers calls for a different rhythm and tolerance than the deep snows of winters in Buffalo, New York around the Great Lakes region. And the 90% humidity of Fort Smith, Arkansas creates a different form of heat than the extreme 15% dryness of Tucson, Arizona, regardless of the thermometer reading.
Basic values of patriotism, faith and religious observances, compassion towards others, charity to those in need, and respect for law and democratic process can be shared universally. Yet how those values are expressed and fulfilled cannot, and should not, be the same, given our incredible diversity of situations. Nevertheless, I continue to be amazed at the ongoing efforts of some people to try to enforce an ill-fitting homogeneity at a detailed level across this land. Be it a faceless bureaucrat dictating educational standards and teaching methodologies; a building code based upon big-city realities pushed out to rural communities; a religious denominational belief and practice attempted to be made a secular standard; architected homes completely mis-fitted in style to the land they sit on and the historical culture they embody; or the mandated allocation of governmental budgets applied to specific local action programs – all of these reflect a supposed knowing of “what is best locally” without any real understanding of what local really means.
Tip O’Neil’s famous observation was that “all politics is local.” Over the past years we have dangerously tried to turn that on its head. The idea was not to tell the locals what to do, but to listen to the locals and then give them a wide swath and meaningful support to pursue their individual directions. Allow people to respond as best appropriate to local conditions and priorities. We should remember that our view is our own, but other views are not necessarily a disagreement with us. They may rather reflect a life that is often outside of our own field of vision, and thereby outside of our real understanding.
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